Anis Mojgani
Anis Mojgani (1977 - ), New Orleans, Louisiana, United States Anis Mojgani is a spoken word poet and author of Over the Anvil We Stretch (2008) and The Feather Room (2011). He attended the Savannah College of Art and Design earning a BFA in comic books and completed the Media and Performing Arts graduate program. His work has also been published in literary magazines including Rattle, The Legendary, Radius, and Bestiary, as well as many anthologies. Mojgani is a 2011 National Book Award nominee, 2008 Pushcart Prize nominee, International World Cup Poetry Slam Champion (2006), two-time National Poetry Slam Champion (2005, 2006), and has taught writing and art in schools and at universities around the United States, and even in South Africa. Mojgani recently co-wrote an unscripted, feature-length film, Otis Under Sky, which premiered at SXSW. He is a founding member of the Poetry Revival with Derrick Brown and Buddy Wakefield. Anis Mojgani is most known for his contribution to the slam poetry scene, bringing this style to greater prominence and making it more accessible to new generations, most notably for his poem “Shake the Dust.” Anis Mojgani is an important influence for me because, although he is not the poet who first inspired me, he is the one whose voice speaks to me most strongly. His poetry has a sense of wonder and magic in the smallest details, most often taking on a bit of magical realism, if one were to give it a genre. His spoken word pieces still reflect this, usually in more colloquial terms but just as fantastic images, and very often in a list-like format. His page pieces, varying from free verse to prose poems, can be another story entirely. Fantastical retellings of childhood memories, family histories, love stories, and dreams work to create a large story when regarded as a complete collection (in my opinion, this is most true for The Feather Room, although Over the Anvil We Stretch is very dream-like in quality as well). Not only does he come up with a jaw-dropping turn of phrase in poetry, but he has also demonstrated even in a recent TED appearance that poetry, and poetic thought, colors his world completely. I am constantly in a search of words like his, to live creatively in all aspects of my life and to view all of my daily encounters through a poet’s dreaming eye. * * * * * * * * * * * http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qDtHdloK44 (“Shake the Dust”) Mojgani, Anis. “Shake the Dust.” To Write Love on Her Arms. 9 Jan 2009. YouTube. 19 April 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQi8W1afSEQ (“Direct Oders”) Mojgani, Anis. “Direct Orders.” Seattle Grand Slam. YouTube. 19 April 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pCMDGOaU4w&feature=related (“The Giant Golden Boy of Biology” from The Feather Room) Mojgani, Anis. “The Giant Golden Boy of Biology.” Night Kite Revival Tour. Oct 2011. YouTube. 19 April 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nhgp6LM7Uk (“Milos”) Mojgani, Anis. “Milos.” Solomon Sparrow’s Electric Whale Revival. 2007. YouTube. 19 April 2012. * * * * * * * * * * * his coat o how it does shine he doesn’t always know where to go or what to do there are fishhooks in his skin and an accordion from somewhere that he swears could be the moonlight in a white mustache sometimes he feels like a phony that he laughs out of clumsiness that his skeleton doesn’t like the sound his heart makes at night and wishes to run away out over the ridges falling into place among the silhouetted woods the trees all know to grow in the same direction the rivers they know these same things he wants to write something soft and meaningful he wants to make birds that like the feel of their feathers in the wind for those wings to mean everything and to give them to you from Over the Anvil We Stretch by Anis Mojgani, published by Write Bloody Publishing. Copyright 2008 by Anis Mojgani. All rights reserved. this is what it is: a heart made of marbles a pocket filled with crumbs of colored paper a train tunnel painted pink swallowing a paintbrush filling the pillowcases with sand breaking eggs just for the sound our anvils become flocks of tiny geese bending ourselves over them we become water all the light sits on us From The Feather Room ''by Anis Mojgani, published by Write Bloody Publishing. Copyright 2011 by Anis Mojgani. All rights reserved. '''Call it magic' Call it fish eye call it fish lung Call you magic pocket of science Call you carousel my love. Call you parasol. Call you slight rhyme. Handclap and butter knife collection. Collection bread crumb. Call you collection back path back to home. Or morsel soaking up moonlight. Call this something that birds steal, call this Jazz. Call you collection of Motown. Music stacked. Drum kick echoed. Hair shined and piled high. High note and heart opening. Bone split. Knee shaking. Still standing up. Spitting out those animals those beasts. Collection their skulls. Hydra. Harpy. Medea. Jason’s heads hung round his hip. Staining his waist. Bloody belts collected cut and washed. Belt of silver collected and burnt. Call you belt of gold. Call you Heracles. His beautiful body the gods moved themselves through. Call you however it was that those gods traveled: the belly of a cow. A swan. A haystack lit on fire. Bowls of fermenting grapes laid down with slaughtered lambs. Call you how the gods still travel! Radio light! Spectrum of the magnolia! Newspaper boat. Fish eye. Fish lung- magic pocket of science! Smithsonian. Slow paradise. Call you collection of slow paradises moving quickly, turning on a polished floor in a loose dress ties tight at the waste—-you the music they spin you their spinning—-call you parasol! Call you carousel! All your horses and all your bears, going up and down—-the zebra tethered with a bridle of gold and a green feather. All the bees they watch you. That is all. They just watch. They have neither fear nor malice for your skin. They just wish to watch it turn. From The Feather Room ''by Anis Mojgani, published by Write Bloody Publishing. Copyright 2011 by Anis Mojgani. All rights reserved. '''These things are how you make me feel:' a nuclear reactor power plant. Filled not though with any strange harmful energy, only the energy of the sun, daisies, and golden marbles. Filled to the brim. Behind it there is also a rainbow. The reactor that I am harnesses the power of the rainbow as well. a great grey stoned tall tower that rises out of the ocean. There is nothing around for so far. From the window at the top of the tower I watch the waves, I watch the world. There is nothing but ocean stretching for so far. From here it looks like the biggest thing in the universe - it is the universe. From my room in the tower, sitting above the universe, watching its drops of water move in unison together, I feel like maybe I am bigger. I am 17 and running in slow motion through a field lit with light. The dust moves slowly through the air, the sun burning through its tiny bodies. Perhaps it is dust. Perhaps it is magic dust. Perhaps this magical dust is what I am made from. I close my eyes and everything I see floats. I am on a boat. it is night. The world has calmed itself simply to hold me inside all that is darkness, simply to rock me gently. The subway chambers of Moscow. I am vaulted. I have giant chandeliers hanging from my underground ceilings. I glow with so much light. I am a ballroom for the trains of Russia. If you happen to be a child that has climbed down my steps to enter my body and you yell into it, the echoes will hit those vaulted underground ceilings and bounce. This happens all the time. My tunnels are filled with these sounds. . like I will live forever. There is nothing that can harm me. My body will always be young and perfect. There are cities growing inside my chest. The cities look like New York in the fifties. The buildings scrape the clouds. Every automobile is a convertible. The men all wear neckties and hats. The women have beautiful shapes of color on their bodies. Someone has saved a baby, there is a parade. Someone has saved all the babies - there is the biggest parade moving inside of me. The sky explodes with ticker tape. Strangers are kissing in the streets. Their kisses are what make me live forever. like honey and trombones. Like honey and trombones. From The Feather Room ''by Anis Mojgani, published by Write Bloody Publishing. Copyright 2011 by Anis Mojgani. All rights reserved. '''What His Father Said' “My heart was a bathtub. I filled it with so much water. So much warm water. I sat in it. It was so warm. When it got cold I turned the water back on. The water flowed over the sides. I kept filling it. The water covered the bathroom floor. The water went under the door and down the hall. The water filled the hall. I was sitting in it the whole time. It was so warm. The water filled the whole house. Poured out of the windows on the second floor. It flooded the attic. I was still sitting in it. It felt so good on my body. Our lawn became a swimming pool. The street a creek. Downtown became a lake. City Hall a lake house. Your grandfather started going to work in a rowboat. I saw the mayor in a canoe. For some reason, the mayor had feathers in his mouth. I saw him from the bathroom’s window. When he paddled past, he smiled at me. I was in the tub the whole time. It was so warm. So warm. I flooded the whole town. That’s why we moved here.” From The Feather Room ''by Anis Mojgani, published by Write Bloody Publishing. Copyright 2011 by Anis Mojgani. All rights reserved. * * * * * * * * * * * '''Prompt:' Preferably in a list-like format (as blatant as “Shake the Dust” or “Direct Orders” or more loose, such as “Giant Golden Boy” or “Milos”) tell a memory, tell a story. Mojgani’s poems are often stories from his childhood, moments captured with someone he loves dearly, or reimagined family history. Try to use metaphors in strange ways (see “This is how it is:,” “These Things,” or “What His Father Said”). Find unexpected but true language. Be playfully serious. Is this story a lesson (like “Shake the Dust”)? Is this story a love letter (like “This is how you make me feel”)?